They’ll follow through.

The United States’ resistance to the multilateral effort to harmonize or internationalize antitrust laws is somewhat puzzling. It is presumably in the interests of U.S. companies and U.S. enforcement agencies to have a single international antitrust standard: for companies, a single standard would reduce the transaction costs of engaging in multinational business, and for enforcement agencies, a single standard would ensure uniform and effective enforcement of antitrust laws extraterritorially. Moreover, from the point of view of the government, required adherence to an international enforcement norm could serve as a “hands-tying” mechanism that would commit the government to a preferred long-term course of action and discourage defection caused by short-term, domestic political incentives.5

[FOOTNOTE] 5 For example, the WTO commits the United States to a particular level of tariffs and deters it from sacrificing the long-term benefits of open trade for a short-term response to domestic demands for protection. The deterrence is not perfect—as evidenced by the steel tariff kerfuffle during George W. Bush’s presidency and the Chinese tire dust-up more recently during the Obama presidency—but it substantially raises the political costs of such defections. See Dan Ackman, Bush Cuts Steel Tariffs, Declares Victory, FORBES (Dec. 5, 2003), http://www.forbes.com/2003/12/05/cx_da_1205topnews .html; Peter Whoriskey & Anne Komblut, U.S. to Impose Tariff on Tires from China, WASH. POST (Sept. 12, 2009), http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp -dyn /content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091103957.html. [END FOOTNOTE]